Bettors focused on Missouri’s efforts to legalize sports wagering

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A FOX4 Emerson College/The Hill Poll says more than twice as many people are ready to vote yes than no right now on Missouri’s Amendment 2, which would legalize sports betting. Twenty-three percent are still undecided.

Covers give bettors insight on best bets for upcoming matchups. Ryan Butler, a Covers.com senior editor, jokes he covers the less exciting stuff. It’s why he spent the past week driving across Missouri, one of 13 states left in America where sports betting is not legal.

“Very much my reporting here was just on the ground, talking to bettors talking to voters,” Butler said.

It took him from St. Louis to Kansas City where he noticed a trend along Missouri’s borders he’d only heard about.

Opposition forms to Missouri sports wagering question

“Going to parking lots in kind of random industrial areas in Kansas City, Kansas and you look and you see the parking lots are just in and out with people with Missouri plates stopping on their phones maybe there for 5-10 minutes,” Butler said.

It’s not just parking lots, sometimes cars park on the side of offramps.

“Every Sunday its lined up here on Sundays,” said Austin Lewis, a Liberty, Missouri man who drives I-635 to Kansas to place sports bets.

“Thirty minute drive everyday, pretty much ready for it to be legal in Missouri,” he explained.

For the sports fan, it’s worth it.

“The games that I don’t like to watch, if I throw money on it, all the sudden I like watching them.”

Butler says he found a lot of people like Lewis finding ways to bet even in Columbia, Missouri. While the FOX4 Emerson College/The Hill Poll says 52 percent of Missourians support sports betting, 25 percent are against and 23 percent are undecided, there’s now $4 million worth of opposition from an unexpected source, Caesar’s, operators of Harrah’s North Kansas City Casino.

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“It will be interesting to see now that this opposition measure has gotten some funding from a casino interestingly enough, it will be interesting to see if that helps sway voters,” Butler said.

Caesars so far hasn’t commented on why its backing a no vote on Amendment 2. Experts think it has to do with the way sports betting licensed would be distributed to supporters of the amendment like FanDuel and DraftKings, not giving Caesars any extra benefit for operating three Missouri casinos.

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